Martin McDonagh wrote “The Cripple of Inishmaan” back in 1996, but the play is being performed for the first time on Broadway this season, and is now nominated for six Tony Awards.

The nominations include Best Revival of a Play, and, standing alongside Shakespeare (“Twelfth Night”), Lorraine Hansberry (“A Raisin in the Sun”) and Tennessee Williams (“The Glass Menagerie”), McDonagh is the only living playwright in the category.

“It definitely makes me feel very old, if not on the way out,” McDonagh, 44, said.

“Time has gone so quickly,” he added. “It’s weird to be up for best revival — it feels like I only wrote the play a few weeks ago.”

McDonagh’s more recent works include the Broadway play “A Behanding in Spokane” and the films “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths” (both of which he directed). He attended the Broadway opening night of “Inishmaan” and felt the production had improved since it played in London’s West End.

“I think the story just popped out more and everyone was a little deeper,” he said. “By that nature, it became funnier but became more truthful at the same time.”

The play is about a young, physically handicapped man named Billy (played by Daniel Radcliffe) who lives with his aunties on the remote island of Inishmaan. When a big Hollywood producer lands on neighboring Inishmore to cast his film, Billy tries his luck at acting.

“Inishmaan” was first performed in New York at the Public in 1998 — a production McDonagh called “like a musical,” that he found had played “only for the comedy and not the truth of it.”

But he liked the 2008 production of “Inishmaan,” staged in New York by the Atlantic and Druid Theater Companies and directed by Garry Hynes, and is impressed with this season’s version, helmed by Michael Grandage.

“Audiences seem to enjoy it a lot more,” he said of the current production. “You actually get more laughter because the audience is wrapped up in the story.”

McDonagh, born in England to Irish parents, pointed to the jokes in the play about abusive priests. “It’s striking this time around that with all the stuff that’s been out about the priesthood in Ireland since [writing the play], that dark humor has aged quite well,” he said.

Based in London, McDonagh is now working on a script for a film that he plans to direct next year. The film is set in contemporary Missouri and has a strong female lead, he said, much like his play “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” and the two auntie characters in “Inishmaan.”

He is also working on a possible West End production of his play “Pillowman,” which he hopes will transfer to New York afterward. “That’s my favorite play,” he said. “I think it achieves exactly what I set out to achieve in theater. But like they say, they’re all your children.”

In the meantime, he’s counting down the days to the World Cup, when he and his brother, film director John Michael McDonagh, will likely be glued to the television. “We’ll be watching three matches a day, everyday.”

About Speakeasy

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